Black Birds
by otsanda
Summary: Oneshot. Dean and Castiel have to salt and burn a body buried at a cemetery, but Dean is distracted by the overabundance of crows. Castiel tries to distract them all. Inspired by a task from GISHWHES 2012.


The sun was still quite a ways above the horizon when they reached the cemetery, so Dean was reasonably certain that he and Cas could have this body salted and torched before it was fully dark.

The first thing Dean noticed when they got out of the impala was the birds. They were everywhere. Dean glared at them. They looked like crows or something. Hundreds or even thousands of the things covered the cemetery; they were in the trees, on the headstones, on the ground, flying in the air. Cawing like they had a goddamn mission.

"Friggin birds," Dean said, making an aggressive gesture in their general direction, "I didn't know they moved in packs. Don't they have somewhere to be?"

"Technically," Cas started, but Dean interrupted him.

"I don't care about technically. They're friggin annoying."

They found the headstone they were looking for under the strong limbs of a large, oak tree. The granite was bathed in an orange glow from the setting sun. The birds, which had scattered a bit upon the approach of the two men, crowded back around them as they settled in to excavate.

Dean was on the shovel, of course. Cas probably couldn't even use one. Inexperienced angel-boy.

Dean cut through the tough dirt in relative silence; Cas stood nearby keeping watch. It was late autumn and the temperature was pretty low for the time of year, so the ground was actually pretty solid and he was quickly working up a sweat.

The birds circled the two men, cawing obnoxiously.

"Hey!" Dean snapped at them, "Scram!"

The birds didn't heed him. Cas looked away from the road he was watching and turned towards Dean before lifting his head up to the sky, studying the dark creatures with a furrowed brow.

Dean paused his digging, "What?"

Cas shook his head and turned back to the road.

Dean made some good headway, but the dang birds just kept getting louder. A huge one landed less than five feet from where Dean was digging.

"What the Hell?" Dean muttered, "What are they hanging around for? Do they think we're gonna entertain them?" He slapped his shovel on the ground next to the nearest one. It hopped a little distance away and cawed at him. "Hey!" Dean snapped at the birds, "You expecting poetry or something? Beat it!"

The look Cas shot him was confused.

"What?" Dean said defensively "Isn't there some poem about crows or something? Sammy would probably know. Just the kinda weird ass stuff he'd find fascinating."

"Poe." Cas said simply, as Dean resumed digging.

"What?" Dean repeated again, not stopping to look at Castiel.

"The poem you're thinking of. It's by Edgar Allan Poe. It's about a raven." Without any further prompting, Cas began.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,  
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

Dean realized he had stopped digging and was staring dumbly at Cas, who was, in turn, staring placidly at the multitude of birds in the tree above them. Castiel's voice echoed deeply against the headstones that surrounded them as he recited.

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,  
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.  
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-  
Only this, and nothing more."

Cas stopped, looking back to Dean, whose shovel was unmoving, stuck into the dirt in front of him. The echoes of Castiel's voice stilled and the crows heckled louder than before.

"Woah. When did you decide to memorize _that_?" Dean asked, incredulously.

Cas chuckled dryly, "I've had a long existence, Dean. Memorization is not generally something I need to _decide_ to do."

Dean blinked and went back to digging without commenting. The quiet sound of shifting dirt was drowned out when the crows' taunting grew even louder until Dean finally snapped at them, "Okay fine!"

Stabbing his shovel into the dirt again, Dean turned to his friend and, in a softer voice, said "So... d'ya know the rest of it?"

Cas smiled a little, quietly pleased, and continued his recitation.

Dean continued to dig, comforted by the rise and fall of Castiel's voice. And it wasn't so much that Cas was reciting some freaky, touchy-feely crap poetry... it was more like he was telling a story. An important story, but one that only he understood. In a weird way, that sorta made sense.

As the stanzas drew on, Castiel's voice grew louder. He spoke faster. Dean found himself digging more fervently in response. As he worked, the thought skittered across his mind that it sounded like Cas was chanting and he could've lost himself in the sound. It seemed so utterly appropriate in this cold cemetery blanketed by those freaky ebony birds, the dark colors typical of the cemetery glowing eerily warm in the fading sunlight.

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing  
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;  
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining  
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,  
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,  
_ She _shall press, ah, nevermore!

Dean and the weird birds listened eagerly to Castiel's words, as though they were a great secret that would only be told once.

The faster, louder, grander Castiel spoke, the quieter the birds grew until his voice and the muffled turning of the cemetery soil were the only sounds Dean could hear. His voice took on an almost hysterical pitch, but when Dean glanced at him, his face was as bland as ever and his arms were held loosely at his sides.

"Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting-  
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!  
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!  
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!  
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"  
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

On the last stanza, Castiel's voice took on another air: still intense, but strangely restrained. Dean finished digging and prepared the remains while the poem flickered to an end.

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, _still_ is sitting  
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;  
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,  
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;  
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor  
Shall be lifted- nevermore!

Cas ended the poem with a questioning tone. Dean held his lighter aloft and let the silence following Castiel's recitation engulf them.

A cool gust of wind tugged at their hair and clothing, wicking away some of the sweat and heat from Dean's face and body.

A crow cawed.

Dean broke the stillness by tossing the lighter into the grave and felt the heat of the fire on his numb fingers and heard the roar and crackle of the job being completed.

Cas and Dean stood side-by-side, staring at the flame until it died down.

The crows watched quietly.

Dean pulled out his phone and texted an update to Sam.

As they walked back to the impala, Dean broke the silence, "Thanks, man. That was... kinda good."

Castiel just pulled a crooked smile and Dean was struck with how little he really knew of his friend. How big everything was. And how small.

"C'mon," Dean said, patting the hood of the impala as he walked to his door, "Let's get outta here."


End file.
